By all appearances, the tectonic plates of Welsh politics are shifting. After more than a century of near-unbroken rule, Labour’s once-iron grip on Wales is showing hairline cracks, cracks that are being prised open not only by the nationalist left of Plaid Cymru but also by Farage’s Reform Party. For a party that has always seen Wales as home turf, Labour is now forced to reckon with the possibility that its long reign may soon be consigned to the history books.
The data is hardly comforting. A recent YouGov poll has Welsh Labour slumping to just 18 percent, behind Reform and Plaid Cymru, suggesting the upcoming 2026 Senedd election could see them dethroned. Add to that the resignation of First Minister Vaughan Gething, who managed a scandal and a collapse in credibility in just four months, and it’s clear that the rot isn’t just at the grassroots. Voter fatigue after 25 years of uninterrupted Labour rule, coupled with sluggish economic growth, dismal NHS wait times, and failing schools, is culminating in a sour electorate looking for alternatives.
Enter Reform, a party with no leader in Wales, run by an English public school boy, no coherent policy platform for the country, but an abundance of populist flair. Despite its fragile infrastructure, Reform is polling strongly in post-industrial towns like Port Talbot and Cwmbran, areas once considered impregnable Labour heartlands. The appeal is emotional rather than logistical, a visceral disillusionment with the political class paired with a nostalgic yearning for the security and clarity of a bygone industrial era. Nigel Farage’s promise to “re-open” the mothballed Port Talbot blast furnaces is less a policy pledge than a performative declaration of attention to an overlooked region.
But Reform’s rise isn’t simply the product of a few Brexit-tinged slogans shouted into a disaffected void. It reflects a deeper sense that Labour, in Wrexham and Westminster, no longer speaks to ordinary people. Many former voters cite their belief that Labour has abandoned its working-class roots, preferring cultural battles and managerial jargon to direct material improvements. That Starmer now talks of immigration as his central battleground, echoing Farage rather than countering him, suggests Labour has misread the landscape.
Mark Drakeford, Labour's former First Minister, seems to understand this better than most. “The real contest,” he said, “must be for the support of the other 75 percent,” a reference to the traditionally progressive majority in Wales. It’s a view echoed by Eluned Morgan, his successor, who has tried to rekindle “clear red water” between Welsh Labour and Starmer’s Westminster machine. Her new branding, the “Red Welsh Way,” is an attempt to reassert a distinctive, values-based Labour identity rooted in justice, equality, and sustainability. It is, at least in principle, a sound strategy. Welsh Labour thrives when it speaks in a register that is both progressive and distinctly Welsh.
But principles, like polling leads, are fragile things. Labour's decades in government make its outsider rhetoric ring hollow. Progressive slogans alone can’t paper over 25 years of deteriorating services. As Morgan herself conceded, it must be “less chat, and more do.”
The strategic question facing the Labour Party in Wales is whether to chase Reform into the swamp by matching their rhetoric on immigration and national identity, or to reassert themselves as the grown-ups of Welsh progressivism. The evidence suggests the former is a losing game. Starmer’s turn toward tougher immigration talk has failed to dent Reform’s numbers nationally or in Wales. If anything, it validates Farage’s narrative and repels voters who might otherwise support a left-of-centre alternative.
Welsh Labour’s better bet is to double down on competence, values, and localism. That means addressing material grievances such as NHS delays, housing shortages, and economic stagnation, not by copying the right but by showing that the left still has answers. It means resisting centralisation from Westminster and asserting Wales's own political voice. And crucially, it means listening to communities that feel abandoned, not merely diagnosing them as victims of misinformation or nostalgia.
Of course, none of this guarantees salvation. There is a creeping inevitability about the end of Labour’s dominance in Wales, and it may be more a question of “when” than “if.” But who they cede power to remains in their hands.
Trafalgar Strategy is a strategic communications consultancy operating at the intersection of politics, business, and the media.